I Just Got My First Major Viral Article, and It’s More Fun Than a New Puppy!
Here’s what it feels like, how much I’m earning, views, observations, and tips (and some quirky humor)
I’m a modestly successful writer on Medium. I publish about 6 articles a month and some are “Chosen for further distribution.” That further distribution seems to help, and for the last few months I’ve been getting 100 to 200 views a day, which translates into $100 to $250 a month. Not bad, I’ve been feeling pretty good about that.
Then the craziest thing happened, one of my articles went hog wild and shot up into the stratosphere. One morning I looked at my stats and views were over 300 at 8:00 AM. “Holy Cow,” I screamed and continued watching through the day while views climbed up to 1,000. I showed my wife (very excited for me) and my cat (meh) and messaged a couple of friends (also meh). But I was jazzed nevertheless.
The next day got 2,000 and then 4,000 after that. In just over a week, that one article alone has passed 12,000 views, earned over $300 and it’s lifted my other articles (and fragile ego) along with it. Followers? Over 100 new ones in a week. Bingo.
Now, for some of Medium’s top mega-writers that’s just rounding error. But for most of us, the idea of thousands of views in a day is an outlandish fantasy that we dare not dream of.
But hey, it happened to me, why can’t it happen to you?
The article
The article is entitled Average Retirement Savings by Age, How you Compare, and What to Do About it. Quite the mouthful, but people love to see how they compare with others, and I did expect it to do well, just not as well as it did. You can check it out here if you like. It has a cool header picture as well, and everyone says that’s important.
Background
I write about retirement, aging, and travel. I mix it up with an occasional poem or essay. Retirement though, is a nice niche with lots of readers and that’s mostly what I stick to, and this article falls smack dab in the bullseye of that niche.
I have my own publication, but occasionally I’ll submit to different ones and the editor of Crow’s Feet, Nancy Peckenham, was gracious enough to accept my article and publish it within a day.
Some of my stories have exceeded 1,000 views but not many, and always over a much longer time — multiple weeks or months. This one erupted like a volcano.
Pick a niche they say, get a good title and header photo and you’re 90% there. A good publication helps, but mostly, you have to write good stories about topics people want to read about.
Results
- To date, I’ve had 12,000 views and made over $300. Now we all know views aren’t well correlated with earnings, but they’re the biggest numbers on the page, and more fun to watch than Member Reading Time which is exactly how earnings are calculated (see below).
- It was chosen for further distribution by the “Money” topic people, bless their hearts. How do I know this? I downloaded a really cool Chrome extension written by Martin van Soest and you can download it here and read more about it here. This picture shows how it works (no I’m not getting paid for this prop).
- “A rising tide lifts all boats,” the mariners say, and my other articles fared well from the popularity of my viral one. When people find something they like, they’ll root around for more, and they did a lot of rooting with my other articles which brought me even more fame and fortune.
- I had about 400 followers prior to the virus, and in little more than a week, 100 more started following me. It’s viral, that’s what viruses do, they spread.
- The popularity of my viral article, and perhaps a few others raised me up to a Top Writer in the topic Life, which is pretty cool because there are ~600,000 followers of that topic.
- Other great things happened, like over a thousand claps from 200 fans (5 claps per fan isn’t too bad I guess).
Mysterious earnings trend
When I charted my earnings I saw an unexpected trend.
This discovery is mind-blowing for all of us except one man, Opher Ganel who predicted this and reported it here in a math-infused orgy of analysis that would make Einstein cringe. My graph is better and clearly shows that for some reason, Medium pays us more per reader hour as time passes. My first few days hovered around $1.40 but rose consistently to $1.75 per member reading hour on day 10.
Conclusion
The world of Medium is a cruel place filled with mystic sorcery and caprice. We’ll never figure it out, but as long as we have a love of writing and friends who are math majors we can enjoy the process and the results. And maybe once in a while, we can experience the unbridled glee of a viral post.
Right now I feel like a little boy meeting his first puppy. Giddy with excitement, bouncing off the walls, and boasting to anyone who dares to come near. But it won’t last. Soon I’ll read the news again about the state of the world, and the puppy will bite me.
Then, back to writing I go.
Care to join me?
If you’re considering joining Medium you can sign up here (https://brianfeutz.medium.com/membership) and I’ll get a thin, calorie-free slice of your pie. No additional cost to you and it’s a great way to support independent writers. Thank you!
Oh, and thanks for reading!
Connect with me here on Medium and in my blog: the Life After Work Zone. You’ll find articles, stories, and poems about finance, life, travel, and retirement.
If you liked this article, here’s another that you’ll love:
From non-fiction to opinion pieces, short-story narrative to poetry — Brian Feutz has an affinity for the music of words. A wide range of life experiences and interests converge in a lively perspective that challenges conventions and stimulates thought.
He lives by the motto:
“Live more, live smart, laugh, and love. Add sprinkles of mischief and art.”
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